Jackets Forming an Identity

The Blue Jackets won their second game in a row Thursday night – a 5-3 victory over the Nashville Predators. In the end it was a full team effort that brought forth an exciting comeback, but the first 40 minutes of the game were hard to watch. The identity of this team seems to be coming together; but is it sustainable?

For the third game in a row, the team started the game late. Finding themselves down 2-0 after the first period, then 3-1 after the second, it seemed like they were well out of it. In fact, our article yesterday about their history against Nashville seemed to be playing out in front of our eyes again.

The Predators weren’t necessarily playing all that much better – in fact the Jackets held shot advantages through each period. They were just finding ways to capitalize. They got to the hard areas and competed, and took advantage of their chances. The Jackets, while the energy was there, again looked like they lacked direction at both ends of the ice.

But eventually, persistence paid off. Johnny Gaudreau took a terrific feed from Nick Blankenburg and kicked off the comeback with a nifty breakaway goal. Justin Danforth walked around a Nashville defender and showed off soft hands, chipping a goal in behind Nashville goalie Kevin Lankinen. The game was tied with just under 8 minutes left.

Then came a Nashville push. We’ve all seen this story before: Jackets play their butts off to get back into a game, only to see it squandered away in the final minutes. But on this night, that wasn’t the case. Elvis made a couple of big stops, particularly in this sequence here:

Then, the Jackets had a shift in the offensive zone and made things happen. Blankenburg gets the goal, but what a feed this is from Voracek. It brought me out of my seat, even before the puck was shot. The entire play is a team effort, from the forecheck that forces a bad pass, to Roslovic keeping the puck in. Johnson and Blankenburg switching off so Nick can jump into the play. The timing is perfect, right down to Voracek making one extra move to buy himself time to make the pass.

In the end, after a Gaudreau empty netter, the Jackets take home a 5-3 victory that really doesn’t look all that close if you look at the underlying numbers. They outshot the Predators 42-26; out-attempted them 78-56, and even out-hit them 28-15. While they were down 3-1 after 40 minutes, it’s not all that surprising to see a comeback win here.